When he had knocked a third time, and received no reply, Thad proceeded to open the cabin door, after which the rest of the scouts were so eager to enter that he was actually pushed ahead of them into the place.
They stared around in bewilderment, for while a small lamp was burning on a table screwed to the wall on hinges, and some supper was cooking on a small stove, there did not seem to be the first sign of any human presence. There was something so strange and uncanny about this that the scouts looked at one another uneasily.
CHAPTER X.
THE DESERTED SHANTY BOAT.
“Nobody home, Thad!” remarked Giraffe presently.
“It looks that way,” admitted the patrol leader, for the light of the little lamp allowed them to see every part of the interior; and some of the scouts had even bent down to look under the table, and behind an old trunk, without result.
“If he’s stepped out to go on an errand down the road, where there may be some sort of a house, it looks queer to me that he’d leave his supper cooking on the stove here,” and as Allan said this he pushed back a frying pan that seemed to contain fried potatoes so nearly done they would have started to burn in a few more minutes.
“Gosh! don’t this mystery beat everything!” Bumpus was heard to mutter; and since the stout scout seldom expressed himself forcibly it could easily be understood that he was now well worked up; at the same time he warmed his hands by the fire, and even stooped down to take a closer whiff of the cooking food which must have appealed irresistibly to a hungry scout, who was also reckoned a champion feeder.
“He’d better be hurrying back, then,” Step Hen interposed, “if he don’t want to get his jacket wet, because she’s started in to rain, boys, you hear!”
Sure enough, they caught the increasing patter of descending drops on the roof of the cabin, showing that the long-delayed storm had broken bounds at last.
“Woof! talk to me about luck, we’ve got it in big chunks,” said Giraffe, grinning, as he relieved himself of his haversack, and immediately began to open the same, as though bent on considering their own supper.